Raison d'etre
by Phoebonica
Summary: Beatrice is gone, and all Lemony wants is an explanation. ETA: People have told me I rated this too high, so I'm moving it down to T. Warning for violence and some bad language.


Disclaimer: I don't own ASOUE, I'm not making money off this, please don't sue me.

_**Raison d'etre**_

Coming here was a bad idea. In some part of him Lemony knew this. It was a crime scene, and a crime he was suspected of at that, and in any case it had been ten days. Volunteers had already scoured this place for clues, stripped it of its secrets. There was most likely nothing left for him to find.

In some part of him the question arose, _what am I even _looking_ for?_

He didn't know. He didn't care. It didn't matter. He was just searching, that was all, for something, anything, he'd know it when he saw it. He'd know it because it would be the answer. He'd know it because when he found it, everything would make sense.

Scrambling through charred wreckage that less than a fortnight ago had been her home, pushing aside fallen beams with a strength he didn't know he had to find only more destruction on the other side. His hands when he noticed them were scraped and bleeding, there was ash all over him, in his hair, his eyes, in the back of his throat making him cough and gasp. Not important. Not important at all. He had to keep searching.

Because once there had been a wonderful woman in the world, kind and intelligent, witty and beautiful, and now there was only a burned-out ruin. For such a cataclysm there must be an explanation. Somewhere. Without context there is no meaning, without meaning her death was nothing and so was her life and that could not be. Something here would let him understand, would help him, surely.

Ten days. _I'm sorry, darling; I couldn't get here any sooner. I was… indisposed. Too late again, I'm always too late. I'm here now, though. Forgive me?_

_Help me?_

Where he was now, this had been her study. He could tell by the pile of charcoal that had been (eleven days ago) her desk, the distorted picture frame that must once have held the face of someone she loved. (Her husband, her family.) A twisted mass of metal in the centre of it all, just recognisable as a typewriter. He picked it up, turning it over in his hands. How intense the flames must have been, to do something like this.

And what they would have done to _her_… to her hands, her face, her sweet smile…

He moaned in horror, dropping the typewriter and bringing his hands up to his face to stop the sight of her burning, block the sound of her screams. As if that could help him. Help _her_, more to the point. So futile, all this struggle for rationality. She was gone, destroyed, and even if understanding were possible it couldn't bring her back. His whole body trembling in anguish. _Fire is an irreversible reaction. Death is an irreversible reaction. It can't be, but it is._

Coming here was a bad idea.

But there were no good ideas, not any more. And he had to do something.

_I should just…_

There was a sound. Almost imperceptible, but it was there. A crunching of glass. A footstep.

There was someone else here.

Someone else within her home, her private place, her sanctuary, and he wheeled around trying to see who it was (who else would dare to trespass here) but then whoever it was grabbed him from behind and he was being flung to the floor. Landing so hard all the air was knocked out of him and he gasped like a fish, staring up into a face he hadn't seen in fifteen years.

(_Not her though, don't fool yourself that it will ever be her again._)

The other one, the one he had to run from.

"Olaf." The word came out in a rush of air, practically silent though in his head it was a warning siren scream. _Olaf Olaf Olaf. Run, Lemony, run_ (although he couldn't move, lying here now winded and in an almost literal sense petrified.) Caught up with him after all these years, standing over him now with his mouth twisted into a smirk and those eyes that still gleamed like black beetles. Eyes that stripped Lemony of all his protections and left him trapped, helpless. _Visible._

"Long time no see," Olaf said, stepping closer. Lemony fought back a yell of outraged protest (_you are not supposed to see me!_) and shrank away into the dirt. Olaf reached down and grabbed the front of his shirt, yanking him up on to his feet so that they stood face to face. "Looking for something?"

_How did he _know? Lemony thought, hands flailing desperately in mid-air as he tried to form the words that would be a sentence that would be an answer. All that came out of him were incoherent gurgling sounds that he couldn't seem to control. _Something, yes, I'm looking for something, I'm looking for _anything _but how did you know? How did you, of all people?_

Olaf shook him, hard, the smirk replaced now by a look of cold disgust. "The goddamn sugarbowl, Lemony. Isn't that what you're oh-so-desperate to find?"

"_What?_" The absurdity of it shocked him into coherence. Sugarbowl? _Sugarbowl?_ Beatrice was _dead_. Beatrice. Was dead. The sun was blackened, the earth was spinning off its axis, the seas were being swallowed up in blood and fire and here Olaf was thinking he cared about a piece of _tableware_? "We didn't even keep it here!" he stammered, which was of course an equally absurd thing to say.

Olaf seemed taken aback by his reaction. "You didn't?" he asked, stepping back as if to examine him. Lemony shook his head, speechless again, dry-mouthed. He wasn't in a state to lie and Olaf must have seen that because he suddenly let go of him, pushing him away so viciously that he almost fell. "Well, that's a trip wasted. I should have got it out of her before I torched the place."

Lemony stared at him. Swaying, off-balance. "That's why you did this?" he whispered, hearing the hoarse strain of his voice from a long way away. "That's why she's – why you – for that _thing_?"

Olaf sneered, turning away. "Not just that. It was worth it."

Lemony wasn't aware of moving. He couldn't have thought about it. If he'd thought about it he wouldn't have darted forward, wouldn't have flung himself at Olaf and grabbed hold of his shirt collar, above all wouldn't have been able to scream the way he did, you couldn't scream like that if you still had any control of yourself and he recognised that even as he heard his own voice shrieking _how how how could you how dare you what kind of a person what's wrong with you how can you do these things Olaf what kind of a monster are you?_ Hysteria burning his throat even as he lurched forward helpless to stop himself blinded with tears and shoving Olaf back against what was left of a wall, and then suddenly all the air was gone from him again and he doubled over gasping and choking. Olaf following up the first blow with a sharp kick to the stomach that left Lemony sprawling on the ground sick and nearly paralysed with pain.

"You want to know why I did it?" said a voice high above him. There was a soft metal sound, and then a hand twisted in Lemony's hair and pulled him up, forcing his head back. Lemony gasped in shock and then froze, feeling cold metal pressed against his throat.

"She got in my way," Olaf hissed. "Just like you. You can't say I didn't warn you. You knew what would happen if you didn't keep your mouth shut, all of you did. But you didn't _listen_, did you? Because you're all so _noble_. You're the good guys, and the good guys _always_ win in the end. Well, you got what you deserved." He wrenched Lemony's head back further, unbalancing him and making him whimper in pain. "Beatrice got what she deserved."

"No." It was barely audible, just a shaping of the mouth, a rush of air. "No, she didn't – she couldn't have – you did this…"

"_You_ did it, Lemony!" Olaf snarled, the hand with the knife in it drawing up further, pressing closer, on the verge of drawing blood. "You did it fifteen years ago when you wrote that fucking article! All of you, you brought this on _yourselves_!"

"Olaf, _please_!"

It was half a scream and half a snap of frustration, stunning them both into silence for a minute like a blow across the face. _What just happened?_ Their eyes met for a second in the strange clarity of the moment, Olaf's no longer blazing or shining but faintly surprised and somehow oddly human. Then they narrowed again to that sly gleam, and he relaxed his grip slightly, a twisted smile spreading across his face.

"Please what?" he asked, casual, holding up the hand with the knife in it to halt Lemony before he could answer. "No, don't tell me, let me guess. Is it something like 'Please, just stop talking and end my worthless existence already'?" He laughed, not his staged villainous laughter but a soft noise of genuine amusement that made Lemony shudder. "You want me to make you a martyr to the cause like your beloved, don't you? Make it look like you didn't spend fifteen years hiding under your bed like the snivelling little infant you are. That's all any of you want, right? Your precious moral high ground."

Lemony shut his eyes. He could feel hot trails of water running down his face, splashing onto his hands. That would have seemed important not so long ago.

"That's not what I want," he whispered.

"Sure it's not. Admit it, Lemony. You'd just love it if I finished you off here and now. You're nobody now, but give it a couple of weeks they'd all think you were a hero. Yet another pure, innocent victim callously slaughtered by those treacherous fiends who…"

"I don't care what everyone thinks!" Lemony hissed. "How long do you have to drag this out for? Just do whatever you're going to do and leave me alone!" His voice wavered on the last word, trembled and broke into deep, helpless sobs. And oh, it should have hurt. It should have been the ultimate degradation to weep in front of this man. He should have fought it with all the strength he possessed. But it didn't matter. Why try to maintain his dignity? Why would he even care what anyone thought of him, now?

And how could he have thought he might find answers here? There were no answers. Beatrice was gone.

Olaf let go of his hair and he slumped to the floor. From far above him he heard the rasping voice mutter, "You know, this works better when you're begging me _not_ to kill you."

He buried his face in his hands. _Just get it over with._

He waited.

Nothing at all happened. After a while, he opened his eyes and looked up.

His first thought was that Olaf had vanished completely, and of all the horrors on this nightmare day that was somehow the strangest. He scrambled to his feet, shuddering in pain from where he'd been kicked to the ground endless minutes ago, and Olaf was there, walking away. The knife wasn't even in his hand.

"What are you doing?" It had to be his voice. There was no one else there.

Olaf turned and gaped at him. Instinctively Lemony looked down at himself. His whole body was coated in ash. He could feel it clumped in his hair.

"You really don't get it, do you?" Olaf was walking back towards him, shaking his head. "Why do I always have to _explain_ everything? The police want to find whoever did this. They already _know_ there's a notorious arsonist in town. The one from the scandal fifteen years ago, the theatre critic obsessed with the beautiful actress – and this being the home, or rather former home, of the former beautiful actress…" He smiled coldly, running a hand down the side of Lemony's face and bringing it away covered in ash and dust. "They'll catch up with you sooner or later. Or maybe not, maybe you'll get to spend the rest of your life running, being as that's what you're so good at. The point is, much as I'd like to kill you, you're more use to me alive." He blew the ash off his palm into Lemony's face, making him choke and gag. "And almost as entertaining."

"But I know the _truth_!" Lemony spluttered. "I know what you _did_."

"_I know the truth_," Olaf repeated in a taunting falsetto. "Sure you do, Lemony. You know everyone's deep dark secrets. Of course. Trouble is…" He leaned in closer. "In case you hadn't noticed, _no one out there believes a damn word you say_."

Lemony didn't respond. He didn't move. He bit his lip and dug his nails into the palms of his hands until Olaf was out of sight and, he was almost sure, out of earshot. The pain nearly helped but it didn't help enough, and even when he gave in and flung himself headlong to the floor and thrashed and kicked and screamed until his throat gave out there was still no relief. Eventually he was too exhausted to move and just curled up on the floor, shivering. Night was closing in, now. It was getting cold.

Coming here was a bad idea.

_No. It wasn't. You got what you needed._

The thought came unbidden, unprompted. He shook his head. "No," he murmured to himself. "No, there's nothing. I can't… I don't even care any more."

_Well, you can still throw temper tantrums worthy of a three year old. And you waited till _he_ was gone to do it. But more importantly, Lemony, you know. You know the answer. You know who did this, and you know what to do about it. You have to tell the truth. You have to expose him._

"But I can't," he said out loud, sitting up. Blinking ash and grit out of his eyes. "I can't do anything. No one believes me."

_They will if you can prove it. It's all still out there. All the evidence. If you know where to look, and you do._

Staring down at his hands caked with ash.

_What have I got to lose?_

He looked around him at the fallen mansion. "We'll see who they believe," he whispered, into the freezing air.

_My Beatrice. My darling. I won't fail you._

_Not again._


End file.
